 ink
a literary supplement
Fall 2001
One-Way (for E.L.A) By Lindsay King Describing death people always speak of traveling:
"He had to go," "God brought her home,"
because it's easier
to have someone leave on a one-way ticket away
than simply end.
Nothing left but a pile of used cells to mark
the place someone loved. What were you doing
while he was dead? and had been? Somewhere things you don't know
wait to appear, counting
the times you made fun of them, the
dumb jokes you laughed at, the soft,
wet kisses you sighed through while
you didn't know. Today his first day
without days. Or first chance
to scan the reincarnation menu. One hopes
the dead forgive unknowing lapses in gravity.
Insert the metal fitting into the buckle and tighten the strap.
In the event of a sudden change in cabin pressure,
oxygen masks will drop
from the overhead compartments. Or not. Trying to remember the body in that casket was
So-and-So, you can't help thinking of
wax museums, softened mannequins.
It can't really be her.
Makeup caked over death, new silk tie for burial,
silver case and polished stone over shed skin.
Denial of failure to hold on, to treasure
enough the departed. Filling holes,
stubbornly allotting their spaces in our
universe. We hope you have a pleasant flight. One hopes to find,
after the fasten-seatbelts sign has been
turned off, that death is
not one-way, as life has always,
turbulently, insisted upon being.  Untitled
Silver Gelatin Print By Emily Evans Some Poems Are Just Too Hard to Write By Diane Green The one about the O.D. with the purple hair
Opiated poise veneer too thin to be intimidating
The one about Brady dancing in the sky
Peculiar angel who never wanted to be human anyway
Fear of the unknown or the all too well known
Unearth the old typewriter dusted with
Unfamiliar dog hairs, ashes, abandoned webs
Old thoughts confined to an empty room
Then bludgeoned on the sidewalk
Sinister references to old Christmas ribbons
Dead flies thimbles and moths
Trees with imaginary playmates
Junk mail Springboard to a swan song dive
What frail description of Suspirian
Dissolute flailing of those drink bourbon
Look upon the faces of the ones they love
Never to see invisible tears held prisoner
Infirmed like soldiers who have lost their legs | 
